Fluid such as gasoline, propane, fertilizer, chemicals, fuel oil, and the like are often stored in tanks located in remote areas. It is desirable, and known, to equip such remote storage tanks with monitoring equipment having the capability of detecting fluid level, or changes in fluid level, in the tank, and reporting this information to a person, or data collection center located some distance from the tank.
Some monitoring devices, used for this purpose, include an externally protruding antenna, for transmitting data gathered by the monitoring device wirelessly through the antenna.
The construction of such tank monitors is often required, by applicable government regulations, and environmental conditions, to be fluid-tight. In some prior monitoring devices having a projecting wireless antenna, the antenna is mounted on and sealed to a housing, using potting-type compounds. The use of such potting-type compounds is undesirable in that, over time, the compounds tend to degrade, leading to loss of the fluid-type integrity of the monitoring device, and in some cases the necessity of premature replacement of the monitoring device. In addition, the use of such potting-type compounds tends to drive up the cost of development and production of the monitoring device, due to the necessity of performing extensive qualification testing on the device, to demonstrate compliance with applicable government regulations, additional complexity and time required for curing, etc., of the compound during manufacture, and quality control testing of the potted joint during manufacture.
It is desirable to provide an improved monitoring device having an externally protruding antenna, for use with remote tanks containing fluids, such as those listed above, which meets applicable government regulations, while overcoming one or more of the problems described above.